


i declare war on you

by irispectu



Category: Andromeda Six (Visual Novel)
Genre: Angst, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, tansy has emotional trauma babyyy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:35:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25158625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irispectu/pseuds/irispectu
Summary: not all mermaids can swimand they sure as hell can drown
Relationships: Ayame Ikeda/Traveler, Juniper "June" Nyux/Traveler, Ryona Mi'haden/Traveler, Sebastian "Bash" Ilahaj/Traveler, Vexx Serif/Traveler, a lot of these are platonic but they there
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1

For as long as she'd remembered, Tansy had been afraid of the ocean.

The vastness of it terrified her, the way the crashing tides could just swallow you up into the open mouth of the sea. Walking into the waves that lapped at the shores was walking right onto the sea's greedy tongue, before its foam teeth were to crash down. Even with the water just up to her knees there were faint, wet brushes against her ankles and calves, unseen tendrils wrapping around her small legs.

Just because she couldn't drown didn't mean she wasn't afraid to. A species adapted to be able to live in water, yet even Tansy's Kitalphan features betrayed common sense. Gills fluttering anxiously, squeezing shut with her nervous breaths.

But there was a calm to the ocean; the way the cold water would shock her into attention, the grains of sand in between her toes and falling through her fingers. She could sit there for hours, imagining the bright Kitalphan living in the deeps, the humans' lost Atlantis built up again on the seafloor. 

And the animals, colorful fish that would find themselves swimming circles around her feet. Tansy would keep still, heart in her throat, hoping not to scare them away. There were so many she'd heard of, seen in the books back at home, memorized their patterns and scientific names. Some even _glowed _, and just the thought made her giddy with excitement. If only she weren’t so afraid, she’d jump right into the ocean’s cold arms and swim, swim until she found the life that hid under its deep blue surface.__

__Then the water got hotter._ _

__It was gradual, and if it hadn’t increased alongside Kitalpha’s worry, Tansy would’ve just thought it was the summer heat. It bubbled and soon, she heard from whispers, it _boiled _. The planet’s very core simmered with an indistinguishable heat, almost as if it were angry. No, angry was an understatement. It was furious, taking it out on the people who provoked it. That didn’t stop her frequent visits, but soon the heat that radiated from the surface was too much and, god, the _smell _._____ _

Of course, the sea had an ace up its sleeve for those who cowered on land. It ravaged what little was left with earthquakes, crushed cities and homes under landslides. The tides grew violent, pushing the land against each other, and its people against one another.

______The ocean may have been greedy, but it had been disrupted, taken from. Now it was just a matter of revenge._ _ _ _ _ _

______Tansy was nine when the ocean took everything from her._ _ _ _ _ _


	2. Chapter 2

Her mother was the first one to call her Athanasia in years. She called it so sweetly, just the memory enough to make Tansy tear up. Queen Nikolle, that’s what others called her. But to Tansy she was mum, _her_ mum, with a soft voice and gentle hands that trembled ever so slightly, her tone sweet as honey and warm to the touch

After Kitalpha went supernova, Tansy hadn’t felt warm in years. There was a piece of home in her mum, with gills that mirrored her own and jewel tones hidden in her skin and hair. She was an angel, and in the garden all the flowers seemed to turn their heads towards her. They’d play, just the two of them, even if Tansy was a bit old for it. She was ten, yet she’d run around with the energy of a young child and learn all the flowers by their names, her mother close by with a sad smile on her face. There were rare moments, when a laugh would bubble from her mum’s throat, and warmth spread throughout Tansy like honey on her skin. She was quick join in with a smile forming on her face. 

Nikolle was patient, if not distant. She’d nod her head with a far off look in her eyes listening to her daughter, always still, as if she were a statue made of glass. As fragile and graceful as a flower in full bloom. Her mum was beautiful, and around her Tansy felt the familiar calm of the ocean through quiet sobs and wet tears.

But soon, her mum spent more and more time in her own room. 

One day, she stopped coming to the garden altogether.

Tansy still visited the garden, the swaying greenery becoming her only company. Alyways hours at a time, with only the scratching of pen against paper breaking the silence. She wrote, and she drew. Shaky, uncertain strokes, quick back and forth glances from the flower in front of her to the journal in her hands. Notes were scribbled alongside the drawings detailing the shapes, colors, smells. With so much time spent alone in her room she took advantage of the isolation, researching. _Ipomoea purpurea_ , _Ranunculus acris_ , _Hyacinthus orientalis_ , _Anemone coronaria_ , _Tagetes erecta_ , the list went on.

They all had meanings hidden behind their petals, stories once whispered in the wind. And uses; those which were edible, poisonous, oils for aromatherapy. Though her searches may have been filtered and limited, each discovery was documented, dissected, drawn out and analyzed.

Over time her visits to the garden lessened, journals tucked away to collect dust among her shelves. She had other studies and lessons to attend to. And eventually, other people.

~

Amongst dates spent sneaking through the hidden passageways and outside the palace, Tansy loved bringing Vexx to the garden.

It was never anything extravagant, no picnic or stolen kisses under the shade of a tree. He’d simply accompany her, and in turn she’d point out different flowers and ramble about their structure or the mythology and meanings behind them. Vexx would smile and listen, his eyes soft and expression genuine. Whenever she’d look back, a smile on her face as she explained, his gaze was locked on her.

Tansy sighed, pouting up at the guard. “You didn’t even look at it Vexx,” she whined, pulling her hand away from the white petals of a flower.

“What? Of course I did! I was listening to everything you said,” he responded in mock offence, the corner of his mouth twitching into a smirk.

“Alright, what kind of flower is it then?”

“Rainflower.”

“Are they toxic?”

“Only if you eat the leaves or bulb.”

Humming in approval, Tansy got up from where she was crouched, turning to face Vexx with a playful smile. She took a step towards him and leaned forward to look up at his green eyes.

“And what do they mean in the language of flowers?”

As always, the Lieutenant didn’t back down from her challenge. The smile grew on his face, his eyes glinting mischievously. “I love you.”

Tansy flushed, averting her eyes as she bit back a grin. Though he was just stating the meaning, the way Vexx said it made her pulse quicken, surely to rush more blood to her cheeks.

“Back,” she added, before noting his curious expression. Sighing, she managed to look back up at him.

“I love you back.”

A slight blush seemed to dust Vexx’s cheeks, but in response he just quirked a brow. “That’s a bit bold, isn’t it princess?~” he teased, leaning down closer to her reddening face.

“I was correcting you!” Tansy huffed as she gently pushed him away, flustered enough. “From what I could find, there were three. I love you back, I will never forget you and...”

Her voice trailed off as she thought, having paused her counting with a furrowed brow. “And?” Vexx echoed, and Tansy looked back up at him, her expression curious.

“I will atone for my sins.” 

~

“Ryona?”

“Yes?”

“Is it okay if.. Uhm, do you have a plant that maybe I could take care of?”

Ryona looked over at Tansy, seeing how she’d frozen in the middle of watering the flowers, her grip on the spray bottle tight. She smiled warmly, placing a gentle hand on the Kitalphan’s shoulder. “Of course, it would help to brighten up your room.”

Memories of the garden played in the back of Tansy’s head, and she nodded, turning to give Ryona a soft smile and a quiet “thanks.”

The plant was set aside on a shelf, its leaves hanging from the edges of the pot. And maybe it was just what the room needed, because now she had a reason to get up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> snuck a bit of flower language into this one! i like to think that ryona and tansy bond over botany, and the latter def has a huge interest in the former's dangerous plants


	3. Chapter 3

“Anyway, you know I’m a Kitalphan, like you. But probably unlike you, I’m from Kitalpha. How well do you know it?”

Even among the cheers from the crowd and the consistent bustle, the way it thrums as people press and push against one another, Ayame’s voice is clear. 

“Probably?” Tansy repeats, raising a brow. Something about how she had said it… Like there was a chance her assumption was wrong. Not like either of them knew. She shakes her head of thoughts too loud, louder than the voices of the room. “I… I know enough.”

Ayame nods in understanding, and she keeps talking. But her voice feels as faraway as the ambient sounds of the strip club. It’s all fuzzy and Tansy can just barely make it out above her heart, the way it thumps in her chest and her gills flutter in a sensation that feels all too familiar. One thing Aya says snaps her back into attention. 

“Our oceans _boiled_.”

Bile rises to the back of her throat and her hands start to shake _why does that sound so familiar_ , tears sting at her eyes and her vision becomes a blur of colors and lights and noise and. Tansy forces herself to swallow, to look up at the Kitalphan still spinning in front of her with her brows furrowed.

Her voice feels quiet but she knows Aya can hear it. “They died. They.. The earthquakes, the _heat_ they…” A sharp pain shoots through her temple and Tansy flinches, a hand reaching up out of reflex to the side of her head. She prays Aya doesn’t notice, dismissing it as the club getting to her, but it _stings_ and she knows it’s written all over her face.

“We were dying. Of heatstroke, landslides, drowning,” _there was no air in hot water_ , “hunger… People killed each other, Tansy.” _I know_ , she wanted to say, _but how do I know?_

She feels sick, a pressure building in her chest and blocking off her lungs _she can’t breathe_ , the room feels muffled and muddy again, Aya’s words sounding distant. Tansy barely registers the back and forth of their conversation by now. But it feels like it’s ending and she is grasping at straws and memories that dissolve in her fingers like sand and she managed to choke out a final question.

“How did you survive?” _How did I survive?_ A story for another time, and their talk fades to a finish as Aya goes back to dancing, her twirls and tricks fluid as if burned into her muscle memory. That is until she breaks character, and Tansy doesn’t know what she said but it was in a scream.

June's hand on her shoulder shocks her back into reality, and she looks back up at him as he speaks.

“I’d advise you to go somewhere else now.” And so she does.

~ 

“I was born in Kitalpha, it wasn’t in it’s best state by then already, with all the chaos caused by their most recent experiments. But it was home.”

Memories wash over Tansy like the smile that spreads on her face, and she nods solemnly. “It was.”

Ayame pauses, and her face softens as something clicks. “Weren’t you born on Goldis?”

Shaking her head with a sad smile, she looks up and finds herself locking onto cool purple eyes. It’s no surprise Aya was from Kitalpha; there were hints of the ocean’s foam in her hair and the purple water of a sunrise in her eyes. Thinking back to the strip club, the way the memories had tried to force their way back into the skull, Tansy paused. “No. But that’s a story for another time. Right now,” she reached out and held Aya’s hands in her own, “it’s time for yours.”

King Fenris’ blood did not course through Tansy’s veins, but his actions fell heavy on her shoulders regardless. She was still his child, in a bittersweet sort of way, be it that his wife’s charm was the only thing that kept him from leaving her to the mercy of Silta Vie’s streets. Still, she had grown up as his daughter and was viewed as such. Even found family could end with bitterness.

Guilt ate away at her for his ignorance, and her own. But what was a child to realize that the water had not been warmed under the summer sun? Barely a child anymore, ignoring her adolescence just to spend the beginning of it naive and lost in her own head. _Naive_ , that word bit at her ankles, an unforgiving reminder. She was no better than her so-called father.

“He had it coming,” Tansy hissed behind gritted teeth. She knew her father no better than Aya did, and the whispers in the city called him names much worse than that.

“You don’t really mean that, do you?” Oh a part of her does, simmering with disdain. But the other forces her to understand that he was young too when he took the throne, he had never prepared to be thrust upon its seat. 

“I… I’m sorry, I don’t know.” Aya’s smile was genuine, an affirmative squeeze on her hands before she continued speaking. At the mention of the pods, Tansy stiffened, vividly remembering the uncomfortable feeling of being in one with an unfamiliar face so close - the brush of his clothes against her and the deafening silence after the initial wave of crying subsided. The pressure on her chest and the short gasps for air. But she pushed those sides aside and listened intently. At the mention of a brother, Tansy spoke up.

“You have a brother?” As soon as the words leave her mouth, Aya’s lips twist into a frown, and Tansy bites her tongue wishing she could take them back.

“Had.”

Instinctively, Tansy gripped the other woman’s hands tighter with knit brows. “I’m sorry,” she says, but the way Aya brushes it off stops her from saying anymore.

Tansy was lucky. Her experience was an outlier to the harsh realities most Kitalphans faced, and it pained her. She had barely lasted a few months in the Bronze district, but Aya, her strength was incomparable. It almost felt like the front she’d put on for her brother seemed to have never faded. Practiced to perfection, an easy smile back on her purple lips as if nothing happened. _But so much had, and that was what worried Tansy_.


End file.
